


Got Your Six

by MittenCrab



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Relationship, SEP, Seizures, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-19 09:14:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9432221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MittenCrab/pseuds/MittenCrab
Summary: “Seizure,” Jack supplies for him, just as he stumbles to the conclusion himself. “You had another one.” He hesitates for a moment before adding, “longer, this time.”[Sometimes, Gabriel thinks that the injections are going to kill him. At least someone's got his back.]





	

**Author's Note:**

> I was meant to be working on my Old Norse grammar but I got distracted and wrote this instead. I couldn't stop thinking about this ever since [Constance Comment](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConstanceComment) brought up the idea of SEP causing seizures. So I guess this is partially a loveletter to their fic. The other part is shameless self-indulgence.

When he comes to, he doesn’t remember anything. Gabriel heaves in air in tight, desperate gulps and tries to remember how to breathe.

 

Things piece together by fractions.  His face is wet. He is on the floor. He’s lying on his side. He is dizzy. There is something thick and soft underneath his head. Pain is echoing through his whole body and his chest feels so tight that he can barely draw in air. Someone is telling him softly that he’s okay, saying his name, _Gabi, Gabi, Gabi_ , repeating it over and over and over until it all starts to blur. He wonders if he’s home, if he’s dying, why his mamá is there. Gabriel splutters and tries to focus on dragging air into his lungs, no matter how much each gasp feels like inhaling shards of burning glass.

 

He tries to understand where he is, but everything is white-noise. He can’t remember.

 

 _I’ve been shot_ , his brain supplies. And at first, it holds water. The taste of blood is heavy in his mouth, and he’s on the ground and in pain and gasping for breath so he _must_ have been shot. He’s been shot before plenty of times. Of course he’s been shot. But the pain is wrong. There’s no searing heat, just grasping, bone-deep _ache_.

 

Disorientated, he tries to sit up, to put everything together again, to work out where he’s bleeding from. He’s already lost consciousness, so he figures it’s most likely abdominal. His mind flails and grabs onto his marines training, tells him that responding fast is his best chance of survival, that he needs his IFAK, that his heartbeat is elevated something awful and he’s shivering which means _at least_ stage 3 shock so he’s got 5, maybe 10 minutes at best left of the golden hour before he’s seriously fucked. Given the level of shit that he feels, there’s probably arterial or organ damage, and what rationality he has left screams at him to move, move, _move_. But he can’t remember how to make his body co-operate. His brain is stuttering and choking like his lungs are, trembling with the effort of trying to make the world make sense. There is a hand rubbing warm, thick circles against his chest. When he tries to lift himself up, his arm feels like lead. He gets inches above the ground before his muscles give way and he slips back down with a thud. Saliva catches in his throat and he coughs wetly.

 

“Woah, hey, stay right there. Do me a favour and just stay there a little longer Cap.”

 

The voice comes from nowhere. He glances around, wide-eyed and confused, trying to place it. It takes him a while to process Jack when he does see him. His brain notes a scruff of blonde hair, blue eyes staring at him, standard issue t-shirt clinging to Jack’s chest. He thinks there’s something in the crease of the other man’s brow that seems concerned, but he’s too disoriented to process it.

 

“Huh?” he manages, hears the thick slur of his own voice.

 

“Hey,” Jack says, and his voice is soft and breathless, like he’s been running. “You awake?”

 

“IFAK.” he says dully, chokes on a breath. He tries to grab for something, _anything_ useful but his hands won’t obey him. It takes so much effort to try to sit up that he almost thinks he’s going to pass out, but he tries anyway.

 

“Hey, Jesus, just take it easy okay?” Jack presses down gently on his shoulder until he gives in and stays down. “You stubborn motherfucker.” he says quietly, and it’s almost fond.

 

“Shot.” he states more than asks, tries to read Jack’s expression, wonders why the asshole is fucking around rather than giving him his goddamn IFAK. None of it makes sense.

 

“No, you’re not shot. Stop moving. In case you didn’t notice, you’re not doing great at the whole breathing thing right now Cap.”

 

He nods stupidly without understanding why, still dizzy. It takes long, painful minutes for being awake to feel less like a battle. He uses them to take stock of his surroundings, to catalogue each and every aspect until things start to make sense.

 

Gabriel is first and foremost a tactician, and a brilliant one at that. It’s his ability to dissect a tactical emergency, break it down to its geometry and figures and responses, that's got him so far into the Soldier Enhancement Program. The instinct to wrestle things under control through situation analysis kicks in more naturally than breathing - which would almost be funny if it weren’t for the fact that he’s still struggling to force his lungs into submission. But each inhalation is starting to feel a little less frantic, so he’s either going into so much shock that his blood pressure’s dropped beyond belief, or he’s not been shot. Jack is still rubbing his chest with the hand that isn’t holding him down, and somehow that feels good. Clumsily, he pats around his stomach, but his hands come up dry. No blood. No wound. Okay. Not shot.

 

This eases the panic, but it doesn’t make things easier. If he isn’t _shot_ , then there’s no reason for him to be down. Confused, he paws uselessly at the ground underneath him. The floor he’s on is hard and cold, so it must be tiles, ergo, kitchen. He groans. He can’t remember why he’s in the kitchen of all places, but there’s something acrid that smells like spilt beer stinging his nose, alongside the warm smell of sweat and the sandalwood tang of Jack’s deodorant. Somehow, the latter is the best thing in the world. When he closes his eyes and presses into it, he finds that it’s coming from the soft mass under his face. Gabriel blinks hard and squints at it. Blue and red and white. His mind clicks. It’s Jack’s hoodie. It’s the overworn, garish, comic-book hoodie that’s become the source of endless jokes and _supersoldier_ quips ever since it emerged from the depths of Jack’s duffel bag. Jack’s ugly fucking hoodie is folded under his head.

 

“Oh.” He says eloquently as he catalogues this new discovery.

 

“You with me now Reyes?” Jack asks. Gabriel coughs, blinks until his vision clears. His ears have finally stopped ringing. Jack’s voice is slow and and soft and he’s suddenly so damn tired that he wants to wrap himself in it.  

 

“Yeah.” he manages at last, nods clumsily.

 

“Good. You going to stay down if I move?”

 

Gabriel is too tired to argue. He nods again. The pressure on his shoulder eases away slowly.

 

“Okay.” Jack draws in a long breath through his nose and exhales noisily. "You know where you are?”

 

“Kitchen.” he reports eloquently. He looks around him, swallows. His mouth is dry. There’s broken glass lying a foot or so from his face, and a puddle of water pooled over the floor, glistening under the overhead light. He vaguely remembers going to the sink to get it, to ease the nausea.

 

Things start piecing together. The muscle ache. The way his jaw feels too tight. The fact he's lying on his side with his head cushioned. His mind latches onto the wooziness of the latest injection in his arm, on the vertigo still coiling greasily in his stomach.

 

“You remember what happened?”

 

He fumbles through his memories awkwardly. The latest round of shots. Antiseptic in his nose and fire in his veins. The nosebleed dripping down his face and into his beard. The godawful headache. Lying down to sleep. Waking up vomiting. Needing water to clean the taste of bile out of his mouth. Waking up. Floor.

 

“Seizure,” Jack supplies for him, just as he stumbles to the conclusion himself. “You had another one.” He hesitates for a moment before adding, “longer, this time.”

 

Gabriel groans in frustration, closes his eyes, presses his face into the crook of his own elbow. His body _aches_. He tries to focus on getting his breathing even, on the repetition of inhale-exhale.

 

“Fuck.” he mumbles into his arm. Jack starts to rub slow circles at the base of his spine, where the ache is sharp and tender. Jack’s hand is warm, and he tries to let it ground him. He’s feeling too terrible to not be glad that Jack is here with him, and too tired to compute exactly what that means.

 

“You okay?”

 

“ _Fuck_.” He says again, louder. There’s anger humming in his chest like a hot wire, but he isn’t sure whether it’s directed at himself or the injections that are forcing his body to give up. Each time they go through a new round of shots, someone else leaves the program. More often than not, it’s zipped up in a body bag. He’s not ready for that to be him. He’s not ready to sign off. The frustration is making his eyes feel hot and he isn’t sure why.

  
Jack breathes loudly through his nose as though he isn’t quite sure what to do. If he’s honest with himself, Gabriel doesn’t know what the fuck to do either. He’s signed up to a training regime that’s killing him, that’s pushing his body so far beyond its limits that it’s cannibalising itself, but he’s too far in to back out. Morbidly, he thinks of home, of the smokey Los Angeles sunrise, wonders if he’ll ever see it again. He opens his eyes again and lies in silence.

 

There’s still something wet on his face. Gabriel reaches up clumsily and smears his fingers through it, realises belatedly that it’s his own blood and saliva. He grimaces.

 

“Shit, let me clean you up,” Jack says, matter-of-factly. He almost laughs at that, at how ridiculous this whole thing is. Clean him up. As though he needs stitches or wound compression or a SAM splint, not for someone to wipe his face. All of the NDAs he signed his name on, all the contracts he agreed to, promised to make him into something post-human, part of the most elite blackops force the world has ever seen. Lying on the floor in this mess, he sure as hell doesn’t feel much like it. Jack moves from his side, and there’s the sound of running water hitting the kitchen sink.

 

He lets himself focus on Jack’s back, on the curve of his shoulders in the t-shirt, on the bulk of his arms. The serums and tablets and side effects have hit Gabriel hard, but they’ve hit Jack harder. He’s put on so much muscle so quickly that there are stretch marks scratched across his shoulders, stroking up his thighs. Gabriel tells himself that he only glances at Jack in the showers just to confirm that they’re reacting the same way to the program. Nothing more.

 

Jack comes back to kneel beside him. He hesitates for a second, almost awkward. His eyebrows furrow a little, and he swallows. Gabriel supposes he’s worried about his pride, thinks maybe he’s meant to be vaguely humiliated by this, by needing his best friend to clean his own spit off his face. But he’s too exhausted to care. There’s a deep itch tingling at the bridge of his nose and along his cheekbone where his body is starting to heal the bruises he always seems to give himself on the way down.

 

The damp towel that Jack wipes over his jaw with is warm. Gabriel almost sighs. There’s something almost nice about it. He tells himself he’s just relieved to be clean, that it’s nothing to do with the tenderness in Jack’s hands as he wipes over his face, nothing to do with the way the callouses of his fingers graze over his bruised nose to check that it isn’t broken.

 

“Better?” Jack asks him once he’s done.

 

“Better.” he confirms, and it’s true. His mind is stitching itself back together and his chest has stopped feeling like it’s going to burst. And Jack is here.

 

“Want to sit up?”

 

“Yeah.” He’s sick of lying down. Being on the floor feels vulnerable and the more he comes to his senses, the more he itches to move. Gingerly, he pushes himself up, sways as his muscles seize up in protest, and almost topples straight back to the floor.

 

Suddenly, there are hands steadying him.

 

“Easy big guy,” Jack says. Gabriel lets himself be manhandled into sitting. Jack’s hands are warm and firm and he’s sickeningly grateful for it all. “You sore?”

 

He grunts noncommittally in response, which seems to be enough, because Jack’s hands start massaging at his shoulders, working out the screaming, sinew-deep tension where his body has pulled itself too tight for too long. It’s horribly good, and it makes something tug awkwardly in his stomach like snapped string, but he isn’t about to admit it. Especially when Jack’s just been forced to find him seizing on the kitchen floor. Gabriel Reyes is many things, but he doesn’t like to consider 'needlessly cruel' among them. His body has turned into a bomb waiting to detonate. He isn’t willing to let the fallout of that throw Jack into the dirt.

 

“I think,” Gabriel says slowly, rubs a hand over his face and winces as he brushes the bruises, “they’re trying to kill us with this shit.”

  
Jack is silent for a while, kneading at the over-worked muscles of his arms. The air feels tense. Gabriel starts to wonder what it must be like. He’s felt the acid rush of panic in his own chest plenty of times - has rubbed Jack’s back whilst he’s vomited until his scleras are bloodshot; has sat watching the news and stroking back Jack’s hair when he’s been running fevers so high that he’s delirious; has felt Jack’s heart stuttering helplessly under his hand like a dying rabbit and prayed and prayed behind gritted teeth for it not to stop beating. He wonders if Jack feels the same yawning, gaping panic every time he finds him on the floor.  

 

“Nah,” Jack says eventually, breaks his thoughts, “pretty sure this is just the mother of all shitty team building exercises, Cap”

 

Gabriel snorts through his nose, and Jack laughs. Something breaks, and the tension eases out between them like it’s easing out of his body. The air starts to feel easier to breath.

 

“You need to see medical?” Jack says quietly. His hands are easing the cramps out of Gabriel’s stomach in deep, slow circles.

 

“No.” He shakes his head, closes his eyes. "Just need sleep." He swallows hard and focusses on the heat of Jack next to him. It’s fucked up, and he’ll kick himself for it later when he’s thinking straight, but right now, Jack’s hands feel like Los Angeles mornings and firm ground. They feel like home.

 

It’s not the right place. Not the right time. He bites the inside of his cheek until he tastes blood.

 

“How long was I out?” he asks, more to fill the silence than anything else.

 

“About 4 minutes.” Jack’s fingers tighten a little, and in a rush of cold guilt Gabriel instantly regrets asking.

 

“You think there’s good food?” He asks quickly. Injection rounds always come accompanied with higher calorie meals, better quality than their usual carefully calculated diet. It’s all mediocre, but slightly less mediocre than normal, which is what matters. Jack is usually too busy vomiting to eat, so Gabriel sometimes squirrels portions out of the mess hall to keep in their little fridge with names scrawled on torn strips of paper - _Fubar_ , _John_ , _0076_. The two of them never talk about it, but the food is always gone the next day. Something about that makes him strangely happy.

 

Jack half laughs, half winces. “Pretty sure I’ll hurl anything I put in my mouth.”

 

“As long as you aren’t planning on sucking me off, I think we’re good.” Gabriel deadpans, and huffs out a painful laugh as Jack jabs him gently in the ribs.

 

“Fuck you Reyes,” Jack says, but his voice is warm and it makes breathing feel easier.

 

Eventually, Jack’s hands stop. By then, Gabriel is drowsy and muggy headed and feels ready to sleep for a week. The crushing exhaustion of the seizure finally sinks in, seeps through his veins until they feel leaden.

 

“Gonna sleep.” He says, pats Jack’s arm in a clumsy, affectionate gesture. “Help me up.”

 

Jack stands and helps haul him to his feet. Gabriel blinks heavily, and tries not to feel too fond of the horribly overstyled quiff of Jack’s hair, of the stubble that’s running along the fine line of his jaw. He tries not to stare too long at the blue of Jack’s eyes, at the way the corner of his mouth jerks into a smile.

 

With Jack’s shoulder to lean on, Gabriel shuffles his way to his bunk, collapses down onto it gratefully. The mattress feels like heaven against his aching back. His eyes are so heavy he can barely keep them open.

 

“Thanks” Gabriel says, and then, because he’s too tired to stop himself from being an ass; “We should do this again sometime.”

 

Jack rolls his eyes, snorts. “Get some sleep asshole.”

 

Gabriel grunts, presses his face into the pillow. It smells comforting, like sweat and sandalwood. He’s aching but he’s warm and alive and he’s grateful enough for those small mercies. He exhales, feels himself relax.

 

He’s about ready to let sleep wash over him when he realises he hasn’t heard Jack leave. Gabriel cracks open an eye and sees that he’s still standing there, watching him, arms folded.

 

“What?” he asks, dozily. “You gonna watch me sleep? Didn’t peg you for the romantic type.”

 

Jack huffs, and a streak of colour rushes across his cheeks.

 

“Don’t flatter yourself. Just,” he rubs a hand across the back of his neck, and it’s so self-conscious that something churns in Gabriel’s stomach. “Just shout if you need anything, okay? Don’t die because you’re being a stubborn asshole.”

 

“Yeah, yeah.” He closes his eyes again, sinks down into the lumpy pillow. Everything feels weighted and fuzzy. “I get it, Jackie. You got my six.”

  
“Yeah,” he hears Jack say, as he starts to fall asleep, and something in it makes his heart leap. “I’ve got your six.”

**Author's Note:**

> [You can find me on twitter as @mitten_crab!](https://twitter.com/mitten_crab/)   
> 


End file.
